Design Competence and Excellence Center

RISE Design Competence and Excellence Center for inclusive innovation and societal transformation catalyses ecosystems for sustainable futures, transforming existing practices into sustainable ones through design. We envision sustainable futures as those where lives of all beings are respected and where actions to heal the planet are taken towards a horizon of collective thriving. Those futures are populated by people living a purposeful life, in beautiful living spaces. 

Design, culture and creativity is needed to create sustainable, inclusive and beautiful living environment where people want to live, work and co-exist. It is also one of the goals of the European design centre and the ecosystem of designers, architects, the cultural and creative sector it mobilize together with cities, regions and corporations. It revolves around collaborative and brave experimentation, where what we make are instances of the future. These instances serve the purpose to discuss, communicate, imagine, evaluate, direct, and concretize directions for societal transformations.

Based on reflective practice, capitalizing on research through design and research through pedagogies, this design research provides a methodological support to transform current practices into socially and environmentally sustainable ones, by means of participatory design activities, multidisciplinary involvement, and iterative prototyping. These programmes unfolds at different levels, such as academic research work, applied research work with different societal actors, strategic work in setting up regional transformative ecosystems.

We envision sustainable futures as those where lives of all beings are respected and where actions to heal the planet are taken towards an horizon of collective thriving. Those futures are populated by people living a purposeful life, in beautiful living spaces.